Scooping Poop to Mozart Augurs Trough in Housing: Caroline Baum

Commentary by Caroline Baum

-- When CondoFlip.com debuted in 2004, you knew housing was headed for a tumble.

Here was a Web site where customers could buy and sell, sight unseen, condominiums that had yet to be built. It was confirmation of the degree to which home prices had come untethered from housing fundamentals.

If CondoFlip.com represented the peak of the home-buying frenzy, the proliferation of “home staging” businesses to gussy up houses for sale may turn out to be a sign of a bottom. That would certainly validate the message from recent reports showing home sales and single-family starts moving sideways for the last four to six months and home prices falling at a slower pace.

What is home staging? The term, if not the concept, was new to me.

I was dimly aware that real estate agents rearrange the deck chairs in order to make a home appealing to prospective buyers, especially in a down market. But I had no idea there was such an animal as an Accredited Staging Professional, an ASP mission statement, books and courses on the subject and, what else, a reality TV show.

My education started when a press release for a new book, “Staging to Sell: The Secret to Selling Homes in a Down Market,” by Barb Schwarz, landed in my inbox.

The pitch included rave reviews -- a “must-read” -- testimonials by brokers on the secrets of Barb’s success, and compelling data: “Even in today’s slower housing market, 95 percent of staged homes sell, on average, in 35 days or less.” There was no indication what price those staged homes fetched.

At a minimum, the success rate would seem to offer more Hope for Homeowners than all the government programs combined.

Non-Verbal Communication

Like so many trends, home staging started in California, one of four states to suffer the extremes of the boom/bust cycle, and made its way east, according to Kathy Platt, a real- estate sales associate at Bergdorf Realtors, which has offices throughout New Jersey.

Some of the things brokers do to ready a house for sale are intuitive: apply a coat of paint, place fresh flowers throughout the house, make sure the living room doesn’t look like Romper Room.

But there’s more. Musty odors, for example, are a no-no, according to Thea Curtin, a licensed broker with Hammond Real Estate in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

“One reacts to a house on a sensory level,” she says. “It communicates with you even though it has no verbal communication skills.”

Funny, when my house communicates with me, all it says is, “needs vacuuming.”

Muzak by Mozart

A freshly baked apple pie sitting on the stove, with its scent of cinnamon wafting through the house, appeals to potential buyers. Back-lighting creates a warm, rich ambiance.

“I make sure to put some Mozart on,” says Leslie Krusinski, whose New Life Interiors on the North Shore of Long Island specializes in home staging and interior design. “There’s something about music that says ‘dollars.’”

Home staging has attracted real estate agents out of necessity, and interior decorators and set designers by design.

“It’s been merchandized and marketed at the higher levels if the seller can afford it,” Curtin says. “Serious staging can be costly.”

Some brokers maintain an inventory of furniture and have been known to remove the contents of a house and replace them with their own. Others hire home managers to live in a vacant house at reduced rents so that it can be ready-to-show at all times. Making a home feng-shui compliant -- ensuring the design and details harmonize the flow of life-energy in keeping with the ancient Chinese practice -- could involve hiring someone practiced in the art.

Market Response

Home staging? Home managers? The bust has given birth to a whole new industry, inspiring brokers and decorators to reinvent themselves to meet the needs of the marketplace. Who says the market economy doesn’t work?

While Barb’s promotional materials claim she “created” the cottage industry of home staging 37 years ago, others say it pretty much evolved in response to the collapse in the residential real estate market.

“When I started three years ago, no one had ever heard of home staging,” Krusinski says.

That time frame coincides with the cresting of the condo- flip mania.

At its peak, pre-construction condos sold themselves. All the agent had to do was answer the telephone.

Now, brokers have to go to extreme lengths to demonstrate the intrinsic value of a home.

Life Imitates Art

Perhaps the ultimate example of just how far real estate agents are willing to go to seal the deal was an April 1, 2009, segment on American Public Media’s business program, “Marketplace.” A southern California broker didn’t just stage a home for sale. He created an entire fake neighborhood, hiring actors to play mom, dad and the kids next door and dog walkers to stroll the streets.

It turned out to be an April Fools’ joke. Comments on the Web site -- “I can’t believe I fell for this,” for example -- suggest staged neighborhoods aren’t that far removed from reality.

“Staging is fantasy land,” Krusinski says.

It may be, but on some level it’s closer to the truth than flipping unbuilt condos.